Group - Wilderness Woods Film Short

We started off the day doing a location recce. We found different areas of the woods that we thought would be best suited for the idea we initially had. We also evaluated the practicality of the different locations in terms of what styles shots we could achieve and how we would do it.

We used Adobe Premiere Elements 9.0 to edit our footage.

Sound

• For the sound we used non digetic sound and muted all the audio tracks from the footage. This was in order to remove unwanted and unavoidable background noise from the footage due to filming in close proximity to other groups.
• We found the sounds we wanted on royalty free music websites. We chose sounds that created an uneasy and intense atmosphere. We replaced the sound from the footage with ambient woodland sounds and sound effects on significant movements to keep a sense of realism in what is otherwise a fairly surreal sequence.

Editing 

• We chose the establishing shots to be shown first to set the scene and suggest that there is another presence in the woods beside the protagonist. This was enhanced by layering the wood chopping sound effect over the top of the footage. This sound was captured by us on location by hitting together large pieces of chopped wood.
• For one sequence we filmed a specific action from many different angles in order to provide ourselves with a variety of shots to choose from in post. We made the decision to use the shot with the camera focused on the protagonist's arm, moving as the arm moves. This, coupled with a stinger while focusing on the phone, created a great sense of uneasiness in the sequence.
• To release the built up tension and provide a satisfying end to the sequence, we chose to intercut between 2 different lines of action. We ramped up the pace of the sequence by using a quick cutting rate between the still shot of the protagonists' face and him running through the woods and eventually meeting his fate. In the software we completed this simple technique by cutting up the tracks of footage we selected to use, which included three different takes of the close up shot and a three minute continuous take of the protagonist running around the woods in a circle as the camera pivoted to follow him, and spliced the lines of action together by dropping them between each other and closing the gaps. 
• Using stingers and sound effects found online we added impact to the cuts by aligning loud, sudden sounds with the changing of action. 
• In addition to this we placed elements of sound on certain movements, such as an abnormal blink in the close up at the end, adding to the disorientation and surrealism of the sequence.
• Part of the sequence mentioned above included a disorientating shot, made more intense by a slow colour drain to a greener hue. We achieved this by key framing a colour correction effect to change the tones of the colour slowly throughout the clip.